The information was revealed at a press briefing in Hanoi on May 8 by the General Department of Vocational Training under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

According to the department, between the 2001-2006 period, the vocational training network across the country has been strengthened and improved in terms of quality. Currently, the country has 40 colleges, 232 schools, 599 centres and thousands of other establishments involved in vocational training. In the reviewed period, these establishments have trained more than 6.6 million people, achieving an annual growth rate of 6.5 percent. In 2006 alone, 1.34 million people were provided with vocational skills, double the figure of the year 2000. In addition, a rapid increase in the training scale has helped raise the ratio of trained labourers from 13.4 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2006. 

Rural vocational training given a priority

In the reviewed period, vocational training models have been diversified, with a focus on training and recruitment of trained labourers. Training services have been provided by businesses for rural people, ethnic minority students and soldiers who finished military service and training models provided by socio-political organisations.

Worthy of note is the training model for rural people which has helped increase their working skills, generate jobs and reduce poverty. The labour, invalids and social affairs sector has implemented pilot projects to provide vocational training in rural areas in the form of short-term, traditional and mobile training. As a result, more than 300,000 rural people are trained annually, most of whom are young people, social policy beneficiaries and farmers who have been made redundant by shifting the use of agricultural land.  

Ambitious targets

Cao Van Sam, deputy head of the General Department of Vocational Training, said most trained workers meet the requirements of the labour market, with about 70 percent of them getting steady jobs. He quoted employers as saying about 10.9 percent of trained labourers are highly skillful and 58.7 percent are skillful enough to improve workmanship considerably.

To meet the requirements of the labour market till 2010, vocational training centres will focus on raising the scale and quality of services and training highly skilled workers for economic sectors in the integration process. Vietnam aims to raise the ratio of trained workers from 20 percent in 2006 to 32 percent by 2010.

To this end, Mr Sam said the General Department of Vocational Training will continue to diversify training models and build a national standard system of vocational skills to develop suitable training programmes for labourers to get certificates.

Currently, Vietnam has an improper labour structure with a ratio of 01-0.8-2.9 (university student – high school student and training centre learner respectively), while the optimum ratio in regional countries is 1-4-10. To promote vocational training in the coming years, it is imperative to raise public awareness about vocational training and to change policies on salary, preferential treatment and job generation.